Leap of Faith
by HerFairy
Summary: Prompt 10: Captain Swan blind date. For Sierra.
1. Taco Tuesday

**A/N** : I originally posted this on tumblr (requested by katniss-annabeth-luna-jones), but decided to post it here so I could turn it into a series of one-shots so people on fanfiction know that I am still alive. Find me on tumblr as _ohmyjones_ where the stuff will be posted first although I can't say how regularly I'll update this.

* * *

 **Prompt:** post tacos cuddles

* * *

They weren't a thing. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

She tells herself that every time she wakes up next to him, his arm a warm weight around her waist and his scruff rubbing against her neck. And she says to him - and herself - every morning when she finally gets the strength to pull away from his embrace, that this is nothing but a way to scratch an itch. He used to believe her in the beginning, a flash of hurt in his face that was quickly stifled, layered upon by innuendos and jokes and promises, but he can't hide from her. It hurts, but he allows it anyway.

(What she doesn't know is he lays awake long after their done, content for the few moments of peace to hold her, and each time she whispers his name gives gives him strength for the way she'll pull away in the morning. As long as she does that, he can wait for her. He will wait for her.)

This morning is no different than the many times before, her words little more than a whisper because even she couldn't buy them anymore, but she can't just stay either. She wonders why she can hurt both of them, but figures this hurt, momentary and forgotten by the next time they fall into each other's arms, won't last as long as the one where she lets him and fails him. She isn't so much sure that he'll fail her, patient and waiting, more of an open book than he was comfortable admitting, but Emma loses everyone and she knows this is a fault of her own.

She just can't risk it.

So she leaves. He doesn't stop her.

(He does, however, lay in bed for a while longer, knowing that he'll wait for her, but hoping that he won't have to wait for long.)

She can't share this with Mary Margaret, her mother, even if she was Mary Margaret, her friend, first. Somehow though, Mary Margaret knows enough. She pretends to have her back to the door, allowing Emma to escape to her room, to shower and collect herself, but when Emma comes out, there's a cup of hot chocolate on the counter made just the way she likes it.

"You know, I had my reservation as well," Mary Margaret says, blowing steam off her own cup of hot chocolate, turning to face the sink, to face her. "About Charming and I. It happens, we're human, sometimes we doubt our significant others - and, sometimes, we doubt ourselves."

Emma hums in response, but she doesn't think the legendary romance of Snow White and Prince Charming matches the tale of Emma Swan, orphan, and Killian Jones, pirate.

She freezes. When did it became Killian instead of Hook?

Her mother doesn't comment though she could feel the weight of her eyes. "I remember telling you once that your walls keep out pain, but they keep out love too."

Emma had forgotten about that, but at the words, she remembers the day well and flinches into her mug.

"Just remember that, Emma." Her mother leaves her alone then.

Emma drinks slowly, her hot chocolate becoming cold the longer she sits there, half thinking and half feeling. Half dreading, half hoping. Half running, half stuck in place. She thinks she's always been torn this way. She thinks that someone programmed her to be this way, to stay away from leaps of faith because she's afraid she might splatter rather than be caught, but she knows that it's just the build up of all the times she was abandoned. She knows this and that's why she knows that no one should take a leap of faith on her because she would, surely, let them fall.

She wonders how long she'll be marred by her past. Forever the lost girl. She wasn't anymore though, twenty-eight years of her life leading to Storybrooke, to her family, the one she left behind and the ones that left her behind, together at last.

Her thoughts roam too much and she almost misses when Mary Margaret comes back into the apartment, two jars of salsa in her hands and David follows her holding a large container covered in foil. When Killian follows, his eyes flashing to hers immediately and smiling, then Henry, who carries a liter of soda and movies, then Regina, carrying a pie, she realizes it's Taco Tuesday.

She blames this tradition on Henry, but she can't because it's her fault too. She loves the crunch of tacos and so does Regina and, really, he wants his mothers to bond. He wants his family to bond because he's tired of being the mediator. Their tired of making him be one too. So they all suck it up and accept it.

(Everyone enjoys it after a while. They've taken this leap of faith and run with it.)

Henry turns on a movie. It's Christmas themed because it's finally that time of the year. He sits on the sofa with Regina while Mary Margaret and David cuddle up on the floor, leaving Killian and Emma to share the love seat. Even while she eats, she's acutely aware of how close they sit, of the way his leg brushes hers when he laughs (and he laughs a lot because the television is still new to him and he finds it hilarious), of the way he glances back at her when he doesn't understand something, of the way his hand inches closer and closer to hers.

His smile when she takes his plate because she needs to get away from him for a second because, if she doesn't, she might get tempted to take his hand and lay her head on his shoulder. Because she thinks that if she takes a leap of faith, he'll catch her and it'll be sunshine and roses until she fails him.

She takes a long time cleaning up their plates, picking up the mess around the counter, tidying up in a way that she rarely does. She only stops because Mary Margaret gives her a pointed look and gestures back to Killian with a slight tilt of her head, who flickers his gaze between the television and watching Emma.

And she realizes that, if she were to ask him, he would say that he'll take that leap of faith any day. Every morning that he's there, his smile and his trust and the shine in his eyes, says that he is taking that leap of faith _already_. After all, he's here, isn't he? Taco Tuesday with her family, watching a movie with her son, and she feels a flutter in her gut that makes her dry her hands on the dish rag and sit beside him on the couch once more.

She thinks it was her who reaches over and takes his hand, fingers shaking and clammy, his own twining around her, gripping them gently. It's reassuring and she thinks through the rest of the movie, unaware of when she leans against him and his arm goes around her until its over. She stretches, freezing a fraction when he does as well, before settling back down, thinking very hard, made difficult by just how warm he was.

She fights the urge to snuggle into him because Emma Swan doesn't cuddle.

His thumb rubs her shoulder reassuringly, a gentle motion that eases her and tenses her in the same breath, and he listens his chin down on her shoulder while the others head into the kitchen.

(Everyone knows what they are doing too, conveniently finding excuses to speak loudly so they can whisper quietly.)

"You're afraid, Swan," he says. She doesn't deny it.

"I'm getting whiplash from how often you hate me and how often you don't." She knows. She doesn't hate him though, but she knows that it might seem that way.

"Sucks to wait for you to decide if I'm worth it or not," he continues, voice barely above a whisper and she controls her face, brows arching, wincing inwardly. It wasn't a question of whether he's worth it or even if she's worth it. They are worth it. She just... doesn't want to mess this up and that says a lot about their relationship, doesn't it? His thumb continues to rub soothing circles. "But I will wait for you still. I'm willing to take that leap of faith."

She forgets, sometimes, that she's an open book to him as much as he's an open book to her. She stares at him, thinking hard again, and he kisses her temple before he gets to his feet. She wonders if he needs space now too.

(He does because sometimes it's too much and he's not a patient man, but he finds the strength to continue on. He always does.)

She's done thinking the next time they are together. She rests her head on his chest, his breath warm against her and his hand strokes his hair. Neither say anything yet, content for the moment, but she knows they will soon because tonight was gentle and slow, filled with loving caresses and equally loving kisses, the exact opposite of the flurry and heat in their previous lovemaking.

He, however, makes no move to speak and Emma realizes that she needs to finish her leap of faith, to plunge in head first, so she lifts her head up. He tenses briefly, his arms tightening around her, but allows her to move, his eyes guarded. Like he thinks she's leaving. She has to prove him wrong and, more than that, she has to prove to herself that she can do this.

"You've waited a long time for me."

"Aye," he says seriously.

"Sometimes I wonder how you have the patience not to run off-"

"Sometimes I wonder that too," he muses and she smacks his chest gently, giving him a stern look. He stays silent, tilting his head, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Sometimes I wonder how you have the patience not to run off and just leave me in the dust, as I would do if I was in your shoes and was facing somebody like me," she tries to keep eye contact, but tears her eyes away after a moment because his are too intense and she needs to say this. "I'm... glad you didn't though. You are important to me."

He interrupts again, his expression stony when she looks up. "Is this where you tell me that you just want to be friends?"

"No, this is where I tell you that I love you and I don't want to run anymore."

He blinks, once. Twice. A third time. "Aye?"

"Aye," she parrots, smiling when his entire face lights up and - damn - she's never seen a smile like that on him before. Not a grin or a smirk or a half-smile, a real one that stretches his face and makes his eyes crinkle. Then she stares because he's looking around the room suspiciously. "What?"

"You aren't just messing with me, are you?"

"No," she says, somewhat hurt, but not surprised.

"Good, that would have made this awkward." He kisses her and kisses her, barely letting her up for air, trailing kisses and nips down her jaw that make her sigh, memorizing the taste of her skin and the sound of her voice.

They wake up at the same time the next morning and he rolls onto his back, releasing her, giving her the chance to back away as she does most mornings. Instead she lays her head on his chest, pressing a gentle kiss to his heart because she's trusting that he knows what he's doing with his heart when he gives it to her.


	2. Sweaters

**Prompt:** _Emma and Killian hiding in her bug while it starts to snow -_ based off a manip by bashful-killian on tumblr

* * *

"Swan, it's snowing outside, do we have to go?" He says, tugging on the Christmas sweater that Emma forced on him ten minutes ago.

They both look up, snow flakes falling on their noses. She smiles as it sticks to her beanie. "Do you want David to come over again and force the reindeer antlers on your head like last year? And the year before. And the year before that."

He pouts because that picture is brought out every Christmas and every Christmas he gets flustered about something in it. Generally the angle - "It's not my good side, Swan!" - or the fact that he's almost blushing as David throws a red hat on his own head and poses with him. "No."

"Thought so, get in the the car," she replies, unlocking the bug and shoving him into the passenger seat. He grumbles about it, but by the time she comes around the other side, he's buckled up and flicking snow off his hook.

...

David makes a beeline to him the moment they get inside, antlers in hand, but when Killian throws off his heavy jacket, revealing the festive sweater underneath, he actually _pouts_. Mary Margaret laughs and Killian puts the antler on his head instead. "Oh, how the tables turn," he says as Mary Margaret takes a picture on her new looking camera.

"Stop it and help with the gifts," Emma says, snorting as David takes the gifts from her hands and puts them under the tree. A tree decorated in a string of popcorn, mismatched ornaments, and decorated largely at the height for a four year old boy. "Neal help with the decorating?" She thinks fondly of her younger (way younger) brother who has an obsessive love for this holiday.

Mary Margaret's face lights up and they spend the next twenty minutes looking through the pictures on her camera ("Regina gave it to me last week," she explains when Emma asks) of Neal. Neal standing next to a snow man. Neal bundled up so much that only his eyes peek out from beneath a knitted beanie. Neal sitting on Henry's shoulders.

They don't tear up anymore that Mary Margaret doesn't have any pictures of Emma at this age. She imagines later that's why Mary Margaret takes so many pictures that night, ones where Emma and David are laughing, where Killian kisses her forehead as they watch Henry and Neal open presents, where said boys take turns sticking wrapping paper to some part of their face. In the end, she has everyone pose as they take a group picture.

A lot of group pictures.

...

Later, Emma is kissing Henry good-bye as he sits in plaid pajamas that match Neal's and David's and Killian's (though he doesn't wear his). He spends tonight with his grandparents then goes to Regina on Christmas Eve and back to Emma's for Christmas day. It's routine now.

Killian laughs at David who tries to wrestle the antler off. Mary Margaret orders them to stay on until bedtime and he reluctantly complies as Killian laughs more. Until Mary Margaret forces him to put the Christmas sweater back on. He pouts, sets the presents back onto the couch, and yanks it on, careful not to rip the fabric with his hook and Emma walks slowly to watch his shirt ride up his back as he listens his arms.

When he turns and winks at her, she knows that she's caught, but only grins back. They say their goodbyes, take their presents, and head back to the bug sitting innocently on the street, covered in a fair bit of white snow. She grimaces, fingers already cold as she reaches for the handle before he cuts in front and grabs it instead.

"After you, milady," he says, holding it open with a flourish despite the fact that he's, barely, holding the gifts under his other arm. She rolls her eyes and shifts the seat forward so they can toss their presents in the back, but smiles when she realizes he's still standing by her door, waiting for her to climb in before he shuts it.

She does so and he runs around the other side, throwing himself inside, and she laughs at the snow that clings to his face and melts in his dark hair.

"What?"

She pushes snow out of his hair, smiling fondly. "You look old with that much snow in your hair," she teases and he catches her hand, rolling his eyes at her.

"I am not old."

"You're like 300 years old."

"I am not old."

"Yes, you are."

"Swan!"

She kisses him because he always kisses her when she's arguing, however playfully with him, and she has no qualms with turning the tables on him. It's like a shock when they kiss, all warmth and passion even in gentle touches, and she pulls back as he begins to respond, grinning so wide that her face should probably hurt. It doesn't.

He makes a face and, before she can retreat, pulls her forward into his lap, his hook a cool weight against her back, pulling her back in for a kiss that makes her forget, for a moment, that they are inside her bug right outside her parent's home. His tongue slides along her bottom lip, asking for entrance, and she complies, opening her mouth, her tongue brushing along his. For how heated it gets, she controls herself enough to retreat back into the gentleness of their first, only the soft press of her lips against his.

Reluctantly, she breaks from his kiss and climbs back into her own seat. He pouts again and takes her hand.

...

Two days later, Henry gives her a stack of pictures from Mary Margaret and a present they had forgotten. A picture of them inside the bug is at the very front and, behind that, is one of Mary Margaret winking at her.

She tries not to blush, Killian laughs loudly and kisses her, and the next night, it's framed in the living room.


	3. Colds and Hooks

**Prompt:** Mary Margaret is sick and Emma volunteers to cover her class for the day. (requested by katniss-annabeth-luna-jones, originally posted on tumblr).

* * *

 _Achoo_.

"You sneeze in the pancakes one more time," Emma warns her mother who has her face tucked into her elbow as she sneezed twice. Her round face lifts up, sniffling slightly, paler than normal as she offers a smile. Without a doubt, she was sick, but Mary Margaret was more determined than ever to make it to school this week. Something about it being a themed week, something about pirates that Emma had tuned out accidentally because pirate, of course, made her think of _her_ pirate.

"I didn't sneeze into the pancakes, I covered my mouth," Mary Margaret protests, still smiling, her voice barely above a whisper.

"You sound like death is on your doorstep," she says bluntly in reply. "Or a zombie."

She frowns, rubbing her throat absently. "Just a frog in my throat."

"Are we related to Belle too?" Her mother's eyes lit up with amusement, a witty response just waiting to burst from her lips, when her expression shifts swiftly to one of surprise and rising concern. She turns off the stove as Emma turns around. "David?"

If her mother sounds like death, her father looks like death. There's a sheen of sweat on his face, dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn't slept well the night before, and he has a tissue in his hand, raising to his mouth as he coughs. "Hey," he says in greeting, like it's normal for him to shuffle into the room like an old man - the old man he should actually be. "I think I'm sick today."

"No, really?" says Emma sarcastically as Mary Margaret bustles over to him, her hand feeling his cheek and forehead. While her mother does that, Emma goes into the kitchen, preparing some tea and finishing off some of the pancakes as she waits for it to cool. She doubts anyone will be eating it, but she fills up two plates, bringing a plate and tea to the coffee table for David and, to her mother's surprise, comes back with another plate and tea for her.

"I have work a little while, I was just going to get these for you guys," Mary Margaret protests again.

Emma raises her brow, a challenging look on her face that dares her mother to argue with her. "You're not going to work today, you're both contagious. Let's not ruin an entire fourth grade class right before the winter holidays."

"I don't have anyone to cover my class..."

She frowns, momentarily forgetting that in her haste to help her parents, and a solution pops into her mind. "I... I guess I can cover it for today until you can get a replacement? I mean, how hard can it be to deal with a bunch of ten year olds?"

The answer: very difficult.

Almost immediately after she arrives in the classroom, bundled up in a winter sweater and a beanie that makes her hair stand up when she pulls it off, all their eyes look at her. They recognize her, which is good, and immediately straighten in their chairs, all smiles and warm greetings when she awkwardly waves at them. Before leaving, Mary Margaret had instructed her to just watch movies, the easiest way to entertain a bunch of kids without having to delve into the teacher part of it all.

Her first mistake was allowing them to vote on which movie. It starts off civilly enough, with the children striking off movies they didn't want to watch, until they are left with a huge debate between the merits of _Frozen_ over _Peter Pan_ , _Big Hero 6_ over _Frozen_ , and _Peter Pan_ over both. Forty-five minutes of fighting, during which time Emma learns that a multitude of facts about three movies she never cared about, they finally agree on _Big Hero 6_ because it was newer and not everyone had seen it.

It's peaceful after that because everyone stares at the screen. Even Emma, who pretends to sit at the front desk and read a book her mother had left laying there the day before, eventually gives up and sits in the back of the room to watch as well. She enjoys the movie a lot more than she should and she knows that a good portion of the class, even the ones still grumpy over not getting their choice, agree. They break for recess just as the movie ends and Emma stretches over her head, smiling when another teacher pokes her head in and volunteers to take the children outside.

Mary Margaret calls a few minutes later, asking how everything is, and her smile is evident through the phone when Emma tells her, truthfully, that everything is fine.

Until a voice comes over an intercom declaring it inclement weather and the teacher brings all the students back inside, most of them dripping wet, their shoes screeching against the linoleum by the door. Thankfully, they take their soaking jackets by the door, some of them even abandoning their beanies, and Emma turns up the heat in the room because she can see them all shivering. Everyone is too tired and cold to debate which movie next so she turns on _Frozen_. As she watches, she thinks mainly of Elsa's opinion of a movie that sounds almost identical to the life story she shared with them a few weeks ago.

By the time that movie is over, Emma is disappointed to see that the school day lasts another three hours. She's only been with them for half the day. They've already exhausted their movies except one, the shortest one of the bunch, and another teacher had taken the box to the other classes. When _Frozen_ ends, they all stare at her, waiting for instructions on what to do and Emma scratches behind her ear, a habit she picked up from Killian, trying to think of something to say.

"Are you guys reading something?" She asks finally.

They nod.

"Why don't you guys read that for a little while or nap?" She suggests, lips twitching at the scandalized looks they give her at the idea of taking naps, but they follow her instructions anyway. The silence lasts, save for light snoring and the shuffling of pages, for thirteen minutes before the first whisper breaks out. Like the dam breaking, more follow and when Emma quiets them, they last for only five minutes, before everyone is whispering and talking.

Emma gives up and lets them because they aren't causing any problems yet. Emphasis on yet because twenty minutes later, she's interrupting a tug match between a girl named Lindy and a girl named Sasha over a book. She returns the book to Harry, who it rightfully belongs, and sends them to the back of the room, ordering the class to start reading again.

They absolutely don't listen and while Emma desperately wants to just shout at them, she knows that it wouldn't solve much of anything, so she goes to her phone and dials a number. She should just talk to her mom, who could no doubt scold people over the phone, but when somebody answers, it's _him_.

"Hello, love, I thought you were babysitting the wee ones?"

"Have you been talking to my dad?" She asks suspiciously, momentarily forgetting why she called him as his voice washes over her. She hopes he doesn't know, she's pretty sure he does though, but sometimes just listening to him speaks calms her down.

He shuffles the phone around, a clatter sounding a moment later like something being dropped into the sink, before he speaks again, his smirk audible. "No, but Henry did before he left for school and told me."

"Ah, he was supposed to teach him sword fighting again today," she replies absently, only just remembering. He snorts and mumbles, clearly thinking that the lessons were better off with him, but Emma cuts him off. "Hey, look, are you busy?"

"There's something playing on this... telly thing of yours that looks interesting, but not particularly, why? Already missing my presence?" He replies, voice lowering a fraction. "You could have stayed in bed this morning, you know."

She laughs lowly. "Some of us have jobs."

"Well, you won't let me do mine."

"Piracy is illegal."

"It wasn't legal where I'm from either, but that's not the job I meant." She could almost hear his wink through the phone and snorts. "What is it you wanted?"

"Well, it's... pirate week or something at this place. Do you want to come entertain the kids with some PG related stories?" She stresses the rating because he's told her some and she thinks that her mind needs to be bleached still.

He sounds amused and, to her surprise, a little unsure. "I'm not sure what PG means, but I don't think any of my stories are appropriate for little ears."

"I'm sure you'll think of something, just wave your hook around and talk about Neverland before we watch _Peter Pan_?"

"Neverland, Peter Pan? I thought you were in school with wee ones," he frowns.

"I'm not talking about the real Peter Pan, I'm talking about the movie, you can finally see your alter ego."

He pauses for a long moment to think about this. Then, he asks, "Is he dashing?"

"He's definitely something." She smiles mischievously, grateful that their many adventures had kept him from seeing his movie. She desperately wanted to see the look on his face. "They'll be interested to hear anything you've got to say, just don't scar them for lives."

"Aye, alright, I'll give it a try. Be there in a little while." They talk for a little bit as he gets ready before hanging up and, by then, the class is talking loudly.

She shushes them, but they ignore her and she sighs, getting to her feet, whistling. They all stop talking immediately and look at her, impressed. "I have somebody coming to see us before we watch Peter Pan," she tells them, grinning at the interest that shines their faces that they try to hide and fail.

"Who is, Sheriff?"

She leans forward, pretending for a moment that this isn't a class full of little children from fairytales, and smiles. "Someone who used to be a pirate."

They all pause, absolute silence descending on the room, before a little girl in the back gets to her feet, eyes bulging with fear. "An actual pirate?"

"Used to be," she corrects. "And don't worry, I'll keep him under control."

"Okay." It's a little scary how much they all trust her immediately, the buzz of pleasant conversation continuing without a hitch, bouncing questions off that she tries to answer, deflecting the ones she doesn't until he gets here. Then a knock sounds on the door and the entire room shuffles into their seats, legs bouncing and eyes wide with excitement as Emma opens the door.

He's not wearing his usual pirate outfit, opting for casual dark pants, white button shirt that isn't buttoned all the way, and his leather jacket. His hair is messy, like his recipe for actually doing it consisted of running a hand through it, and the moment he sees her, he smirks, his tongue swiping along his bottom lip, knowing that her eyes would follow the movement.

She does, but then tugs him into the room and in front of their eyes. She almost laughs when he scratches behind his ear nervously. Killian Jones, unnerved by about fifteen fourth graders. "Alright, this is Killian Jones."

"Is it true you used to be a pirate?" Harry bursts out from the first row, staring at him with awe. "My dad used to talk about them all the time, but he said you were ugly people with no teeth or completely golden teeth!"

Killian looks offended. "I assure you, I'm still in possession of all my real teeth, and whilst I can't speak for the rest of my crew, I assure you that I am not ugly."

"So you're not really a pirate?"

"Aye, I am," he holds up his hook and she winces when they all stare at it with awe. Maybe it was a bad idea to bring him into the class, but it wasn't like he would attack them. His words around them are a lot more careful than she expects, he details some of his travels, leaving out details that they shouldn't know, for the next hour, answering any questions they have for him.

"Don't fall into piracy though," he tells them as they wind down to watch the movie, a wicked glint in his eyes. "Having a hook is fun, but you lose out on quite a few enjoyable activities."

"Like what?" Harry asks skeptically, who had grown more and more enthusiastic to piracy. Emma imagines that she might be creating a new age of pirates in Storybrooke from bringing Killian in.

She shoots Killian a look because she imagines the enjoyable activities he speaks of aren't in the kid-friendly variety. He catches her eye, winks at her, and turns to the class with a flourish. "Has your nose ever itched? And you just scratch it without thinking?" They chorused 'yes'. He taps his nose. "Well, I got this scar from doing that when I forgot I didn't have a hand."

They gasp, leaning to get a better look, and Emma squints as well, just barely making out a faint scar on his nose. _Huh, that answers that question._

"That's not fun though," Lindy protests.

"It is when your nose is itchy, lass," he corrects, grinning. "You can't hold hands either, not unless they stand on the correct side. You can't do hugs without almost hurting them, you do want to hug your ma or your pa, don't you?"

They nod, frowning.

"You also can't hold two ice cream cones," he says with an exaggerated sigh.

The class looks very pensive. Harry mumbles, "I don't think I want to be a pirate anymore. But they are still cool!"

Emma's relief is tangible when most of the children agree with him. Killian steps back, his hand just brushing hers as she steps forward to set up the movie again. The children move their desks to the side of the room and settle up little forts on the carpet of pillows and blankets that they dig from a closet in the back. Once it's all set up, he tugs her to the back of the room, where they sit back against the wall, far from the kids that squish around the television.

He pulls her closer to him. "How did I do?"

She tries not to be distracted by his lips brushing her cheek as he speaks. "Worried about how you did?" She teases him.

"No!" He says just a little too loudly. Harry looks back them, his eyes narrowed, the leading advocate for watching _Peter Pan_. Killian lowers his voice as she bites back laughter, "I wasn't worried about how I did."

Her laughter dries up at his words, the sincerity in them, and she turns to face him, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. "You did great, they all enjoyed it. I think." She thinks they did at least, but Emma was no closer to being an expert on kids now than she was when she first met Henry.

He smiles uncharacteristically soft as he strokes her cheek. "Good to know, can't say it was a boring experience."

She laughs quietly. "Oh? Considering becoming a teacher?"

Skeptically, he replies, "Somehow, I don't think people would allow for that."

"Professor Jones has a nice ring to it," she tells him, trying to sound serious, but he rolls his eyes at her. He chances a glance at the children, thoroughly engrossed with the television, before looking at her, that wicked gleam returning to his eyes. Before she can protest, he kisses her, drowning out all other thoughts except for the taste of his lips and the smell of spice that clings to him.

He tears his lips away from hers, his eyes wide as his alter ego appears on the screen. "Who the bloody hell is that?"


	4. Burned Food and Towels

**A/N:** This was one of my favorite ones to write! That being said, I've hit the end of my pre-written stuff, so send in your requests if you've got them! If you want me to expand into a kind of sequel to one of the previous parts, let me know as well. Feedback is appreciated!

* * *

 **Prompt:** Their second date is an unusual - and unexpected - one. (AU)

* * *

"The fire alarm is going off, we need to go," Ruby informs her dryly, wearing panties and a shirt, her pants hanging over her arm. Her hair is still wet from her shower, sticking to her face as Emma pokes her head out from the shower, recognizing the blaring sound.

Emma curses, switching off the water, goosebumps breaking across her flesh as the air goes from painfully hot to dreadfully cold. She reaches out and grasps a large towel, enough to hide the fact that she wasn't wearing anything underneath. Ruby grabs her bag, recognizing that Emma needs to focus on not losing a boob while they walk quickly from the bathroom in the gym to the front door. It's a full time job, trying to keep herself from flashing the people around them. "Which dumbass from the cafeteria burned their food enough that they had to call the fire department again?"

"Dunno, wish they would stop though, the fire department is going to think I'm a nudist in training and none of them are my taste," she laughs, her shirt rising some in the back as she adjusts their bags on her shoulder. "I'm starting to think we should go to a different gym."

"You're the one paying for it," Emma reminds her grimly, knowing that her friends invite her along as a guest. "But this is the cheapest one in the town."

"True and I really enjoy taking Mulan's classes," Ruby muses, smiling brightly at the teenager who holds the door open for them. He stares blatantly at the towel covering Emma's chest, a flush on his face, and she glares at him in response, tightening her grip to keep the breeze from lifting her towel.

"Stop laughing," she hisses, nudging Ruby, who shakes with silent laughter.

Ruby shakes her head, biting her lip, chortling as she says, "Hopefully no one calls the police department, David might have a heart attack at seeing his practical sister naked."

Emma groans because she knows that David would cause a scene in his attempt to shield her. He's just that type of person and when she hears sirens, even louder than the fire alarm that still rings in her ears, she ducks behind Ruby just in case it's him.

It isn't.

It's far worse than that because she recognizes the person that hops down from the fire truck, his striking blue eyes looking over everyone for injuries while the rest of his crew investigate the fire.

She ducks her head more, shivering when her hair drips water down her back. "Isn't that the dude you went on a blind date with?" Ruby mutters, frowning at him as she tries to place his face.

"Yes," she hisses back. About a week ago, Anna invited her to The Rabbit Hole under the ruse of planning for Elsa's bachelorette party, but instead she wound up on an evening long date with Elsa's future brother-in-law, Killian Jones. She isn't sure where Anna got the idea, nor does she ask even if she has a suspicious idea that Mary Margaret is involved, but Emma had fun. Things ended the next morning, with neither calling and planning for another date, busy with life and other obligations, despite the fact that Emma looks at her phone often in her sparse spare time.

So here she is, hiding from his sight, freezing cold in her flip flops and towel, while Ruby stares so hard at him that he can't help but feel her gaze. He lifts his head, looking right at them. "Stop getting his attention," Emma says sharply, but Ruby waves enthusiastically. "Ruby!" Too late, he sees her wave and, after he tilts his head, notices that Emma is standing behind her.

He studies her, his eyes roaming over her form, flashing dark blue in the light, but when somebody shouts from inside, he hurries in without saying a word, muttering something under his breath.

Emma wants to leave. Really, her fingers are getting numb, from holding the towel so tightly and from the cold that pierces her bones. Ruby smiles and pulls Emma's hair back into a ponytail, tying it back to keep it from dripping anymore, but makes no move to leave. She says, "I'm obligated as a trainer to see if my job will burn to the ground."

"At least give me the car keys then," Emma replies impatiently, wishing her bug wasn't at Michael's for repairs.

"No way, you'll just leave without me!"

"I wouldn't do that."

"You've done it before."

"That was in _my_ car, I was late for work, and you agreed," she protests, but Ruby ignores her, humming under her breath. Emma counts how long it takes the fire department to put out the flames in the kitchen area of the gym, the crowd dwindling at the lack of information until it's only a few of them still standing, and she's on her third attempt when she spots a figure coming to the door, a person over his shoulder. A paramedic standing outside rushes to get the door.

Emma watches, losing track of seconds, as Killian deposits the man gently on a stretcher waiting for him, frowning as he wipes sweat from his brow. Slowly, the rest of his co-workers leave the gym, all wearing identical expressions of annoyances.

"Reckon you lot should go home, no bloody use going inside," says some skinny dude, wiping his face as he stares them all down. He locks eyes with Ruby and, this surprises Emma, sneers at her.

"Oh, please, we're going to do this again, Will? I remember our last date ending the same way," Ruby complains loudly, stepping away from Emma to stomp over to him.

The man, Will, snorts and his accent thickens with the rest of his words as he meets up with her halfway. "Aye, if you think we should, it's all about what _you_ want anyhow." The two of them walk a little bit away, their voices a furious whisper too low for Emma to hear.

She blushes when people look from the two of them to Emma like she'll have the answer. They stare more when they realize she's only wearing a towel. Emma is pretty positive the entirety of her face resembles a tomato and as she always done when she faces outside of her normal realm, she glares at them. Most flinch, looking back at Will and Ruby, but Killian laughs, walking towards her.

"Hello, love." He rakes over her form again briefly, tongue swiping across his lips in a way that makes Emma twitch, before looking her in the eye, his eyes a brilliant blue, darkened with attraction.

"Hey," she mumbles. She looks away from him, settling her poker face. "So what happened in there?"

"Ah, a series of unfortunate events involving that damn microwave that ends with that one knocking himself unconscious," he replies, his face torn between laughter and annoyance before settling on the former, a smile on his lips. "Is there we talk about the weather as well? I thought we got passed that last week."

She retorts, "Well, what do you want to talk about?"

She expects him to look her over, but she gives him another point when his eyes stay on her own. "I can think of a few things, but none that are appropriate in public," he says cheekily while she deducts that point she just gave him, trying not to laugh.

"Funnily enough, I can't think of what those could be as I slowly freeze to death," she replies dryly. He frowns, the humor vanishing from his face as he spots the goosebumps on her skin and the chattering of her teeth.

Then, he demands, "The hell are you doing standing around in a towel? With wet hair? Are you trying to get pneumonia?"

"It's for this survival show called I Was In The Shower When The Fire Alarm Went Off And Couldn't Get Dressed Without Revealing Myself."

He blinks at that, lips twitching slightly until concern drowns out the rest. "Why didn't you just... duck into an alley or a store or something to put on clothes?"

"..." She blinks rapidly, glances at the bag containing her clothes, and then at the towel around her body. "...You know, that would have been a good idea about half an hour ago. Except the alley part, that's a dumb idea, but a store would be smart."

He sighs in exasperation. "Well, come on, let's not catch your death out here." When she looks over at Will and Ruby, still in furious whispers, he rolls his eyes, pick up both bags, walks over to them, speaks briefly, then sets Ruby's bag on the floor by her feet. Then he goes over to another co-workers, speaks for a little bit longer, and returns to Emma with a faint grin. "If it's alright, I'll take you home after you get changed?"

She considers arguing, a knee jerk reaction to everything, and backing away, another knee jerk reaction to situations with people she might like, but she fights the feeling off as she had vowed to do after their date last week. "Okay," she replies, blinking from her thoughts just in time to catch the fear on his face change to joy.

They turn to walk, but she shivers as wind whips her face and he shrugs off his coat, placing it around her shoulders. "Sorry if it smells like smoke, but it's better than that," he apologizes while she sighs. It does smell like smoke, only faintly, but it's warm and beneath that she can smell him. Spicy and strong and, like the coat, _warm_ \- the last two aren't scents, but they make sense in her head.

She shakes herself and replies to him, keeping her face neutral. "It's fine although won't you get in trouble for wandering off with me?"

"Ah, not really, my shift ended two hours ago."

"What were you doing here then?"

"Well, I was just hanging out..." He says uncomfortably, scratching behind his ear. She knows that's a lie, but doesn't press and he changes the subject, a grin forming on his face. He's attractive doing nothing, but as she stares at him, she admits that he's even more so when he's smiling. "Happy I did though, otherwise I wouldn't have seen you again, I wasn't sure you were going to call me back."

"I was," she says quickly because he looking at her, a question in his statement. "Work just kept me busy, is all." It sounds weak in her ears, an excuse that she uses whenever she's not interested in somebody, but for once, it's the truth. Being deputy meant that Emma was often roped into things when the Sheriff was away - and he was, quite often, as Christmas rapidly approaches and a string of robberies start up at the same time that Graham has to go to Boston for some conference.

"Well, no big deal now, we're here now," he replies after a long moment of looking at her, studying her, before he seems content with what he found. "I imagine I could have called too, I did have your number, but I couldn't ever find the words... and I can't believe I just said that, I didn't mean to," he fumbles, scratching his ear again.

She smiles because he's achingly different when he drops the act, the one with innuendos, to be the real him, the one she glimpsed on their date. "I couldn't either," she admits because he looks uncomfortable at his slip and when he looks at her from the corner of his eye, open affection in his gaze, she stops in her tracks. It was the kind of look that Emma has run from her entire life.

It's too soon, right? It's far too soon for that look to make her heart race, far too soon for her to enjoy those words, and that panics her more than the words themselves.

"Emma?" He asks, worry on his face, snapping her from her racing thoughts. "Are you alright?"

She blinks and smiles. He frowns. "I'm fine, sorry, lost in thought."

"I... okay," he says after a minute, still frowning, but not pushing her anymore than she pushed him earlier. He gestures to the pharmacy, stopping them from walking further. "Well, there's a bathroom if you want to get changed in there?"

She nods and he reaches for the door, pushing it open for her to walk ahead of him. If the short man operating the cash register thinks they are an odd couple, he doesn't say anything, but Emma feels his eyes on her back as she walks to the bathrooms. "I'll just be a minute," she says as she takes her bag, holding her towel with one hand.

She locks the door behind her, placing his jacket on the hook hanging there, and changes clothes quickly. It's something of a relief to be wearing underwear and, slightly less so, a bra, especially as she pulls on jeans and a black tank-top, shoving her towel into the bag and zipping it up again.

"Feel better?" He asks when she steps out again, her bag on her shoulder and his jacket over her arm. She offers it back, but he shakes his head. "It's a bit of a walk to my car, I think you'll want it."

"You don't need it?"

"I'm wearing a long sleeved shirt," he points out, tugging on the black shirt that clings to him like a second like Emma hasn't been ogling a few minutes ago. She pats herself on the back mentally for managing to hide it as she pulls his jacket on with a shrug.

She won't complain, she likes the way it smells still.

They leave the pharmacy and now that she's wearing clothes, Emma finds that her emotions are so much easier to think about without panicking. She notices that he offers to take her bag for her (she declines, she can carry it) and she notices that he looks at her frequently like he doesn't quite believe she's walking next to him. Most of all, she notices that when he smiles, a genuine one that makes his eyes lighten, her stomach seems to do strange little flips.

While it seems to take ages to reach the pharmacy, the even longer distance to his car and then to her place seems to happen in the blink of an eye. Somewhere between their debate about Will and Ruby and the newest marvel movie, he's opening the passenger seat to his midnight blue truck for her. They are talking about their week on the ride there and by the time Emma is done detailing the ridiculousness of David asking multiple questions about their date last week, he's pulling to a stop outside her house, a faint grin on his face.

"We've been driving around your house for a good ten minutes now, love, I probably shouldn't steal your company any longer tonight," he says as he puts his truck in park and climbs out, intent on getting her door for her. She lets him, more because she fights her disappoint at their time being over with the knowledge that she enjoys his company.

She doesn't want it to end with that date a week ago.

"Stealing my company implies I had other plans tonight," she points out as he opens the door.

"No hot date tonight?" He jokes, helping her out.

"Nope," she says, grinning faintly, walking up the steps. "I'm still recovering from my last one with this guy I know."

"Is he dashing?" He questions.

"Hmm," she pretends to think about it. "He thinks so."

They are at her door by this point and he turns to face her. "And yourself? What do you think?"

"I might need more convincing," she says simply.

He grins hesitantly and his next question doesn't surprise her. "Does that mean we'll go on another date?"

She considers pondering with it to mess with him, but he's rocking on his heels as he waits for her response and she doesn't have the heart to make him think she'll say no. "I think that's a good idea," she says, smiling.

For his credit, he doesn't whoop when she says so, but the way his eyes light up and the way his smile widens conveys the feeling enough. Then, because she really can't stand to have his lips taunt her anymore, she leans forward, their noses brushing, and kisses him. His hands fall to her waist gently as he responds to her kiss with equal fervor. She thinks that her heart might thump out of her chest, that her stomach might drop out of her bottom when he pulls her closer, thumbs brushing beneath her shirt and caressing the flesh of her sides.

She pulls back, breathless, and opens her eyes. His open in the same moment, a dark blue that reminds her of the ocean, and he smiles at her, lips taunting her once more, but she controls herself, smiling back.

His voice is as breathless as she feels as he says, "Is that how you always kiss at the end of a second date?"

"Is this a second date?"

"Just a little bit, we did much of the important things like talking and kissing," he replies, smirking.

"True," she muses. "This isn't a traditional second date though."

"Aye, we'll have to make it up for the third one then." He kisses her again, but it lasts less than a second, just a caress that makes her bite her lip. "I would encourage more kissing, but I'm afraid I have work tomorrow."

"I do too..." She clears her throat and steps back, putting space between them because she wants nothing more to kiss him again. "So... I'll call you tomorrow?"

"Aye, I would like that, I'll see you soon," he seems unable to resist her, kissing her again. She laughs, shoving him back gently and he grins, stepping back from her, eyes dancing with affection once more. She enjoys the feeling, the want to run less and less the longer she stares at his retreating form. "See you soon, Emma."

"Bye, Killian." She waits by the door until he gets inside his truck and he waits until she's inside before leaving. She pauses until the sound of his truck disappears, her fingers pressing against her lips for a long, long minute, and she finds herself grateful that some dumbass burned their food.


	5. Our Hearts Beat Together

I'm out of town for a little while so I won't have time to post anything, but I should have time to write so if you have anything you want me to write so hit me up!

* * *

 **Prompt:** No one told them how to share a heart, but they figured it out.

* * *

The first time she gave him her heart, it wasn't as literal as going to the Underworld for him. It was an acknowledgement that she would love him always and that she wanted his love for just as long.

The second time is far more literal. They ask Regina to do it, the one with the most experience ripping out hearts and Emma's protection, the one that kept Cora from ripping it out so many years ago, allows her. Emma gasps as Regina plunges a hand into her chest, tightening around her heart, and Emma chokes shakily when Regina rips it out.

Briefly, she relishes in the lack of emotion, the pain and weight of love disappearing.

She looks at Henry, so young to have seen so much, her first true love, who stares at her with wide eyes, attempting to mask his fear. He knows that his grandparents survived from it, but it's one thing to know that something happened a while ago and another to watch it play out in front of him. Especially when it's her.

She doesn't feel anything but an echo of the tenderness and love she usually felt.

She looks at her parents, they watch her with hope and love so intense that she her stare lingers. The idea that she could fail or die isn't an option in their minds, but maybe they just know better than anyone else the power of true love.

Without warning, she feels more than sees her heart being ripped in half. It's like someone plunged a white-hot knife straight into her chest, straight through the bones that protect it. Her mouth opens, probably to scream out, but no sound comes out, just a wordless gasp that makes her family wince. Robin tugs Henry away, deciding that it was enough, and she should feel some shame for not thinking as Henry's mother, but she _can't_ think of anything except wanting to die.

Abruptly, it all ends, she feels a warm weight pressed in her chest and despite being smaller than before, it's heavier than before, flooding with the weight and heaviness and intensity of love. She never wants to let it go again, because though it strangles her at times, too heavy of a cross for her to carry, as she sees Killian gasp, his eyes flashing open, blue eyes reaching out for hers, a feeling of lightness flooding her that makes this all worth it.

"Emma," he breathes, his voice shaky, lifting himself up from the floor, limbs creaking from the sudden shift. The rest hold of their group hold back, she's thankful for that later, but in that moment, she can't think of anything but his face and his voice and his everything that she thought she would never see again, and she crosses the few steps between them in a second. She wraps him in her arms and she feels him hold her just as tight, shaking from all the emotions that they can't put into words.

...

She realizes a few days later that though her heart beats the same, with each thud she feels something different, a flood of emotions that range from self-hatred to staggering love. She has for days, but she confuses this for the reaction to all her mistakes as they arrive back in Storybrooke, as they return _home_.

As she feels her own happiness, she senses the unease and she knows that it's not her. She feels nothing but hope and happiness and, maybe, a pang of guilt that still haunts her, but not unease.

They walk onto the shore and the feeling grows so she pulls back, allowing the rest to hurry ahead of them, rushing to the rest of their family that they left behind. Her parents to baby Neal, Regina and Robin to Roland and Baby Hood with Henry in tow.

She smiles at Henry when he looks back and he smiles back before he's gone, even his footsteps fading, and she turns to face Killian. He can't hide his expressions from her, not anymore, not after all this, and still she takes a minute to look past his smile to the rest of his emotions underneath it. He stares at her, longing and love and peace drowning out the unease. She frowns and it returns full force, crippling in its intensity.

"Killian...?" She asks though she doesn't know whether she's questioning why he feels this way or questioning how _she_ feels it too, feels as it easily as her own emotions. Actually, easier, far easier because Emma struggles to decipher her own on a daily basis.

He pulls her to him, his arms wrapping around her waist and crushing her body against his, face nestled into her neck where he just leans there and _breathes_. This isn't unusual, they can't stand to let the other go for too long, but the difference here is the way she can feel why he does it. His apprehension, his fear, his longing, his hatred, his _love_. She tugs his hair, lifting his head gently, and kisses him because she's so much better at action than she is at words.

...

She doesn't bring up the emotion thing again, not while they both figure out how their future could go from there, to gone, to there, to gone once more. Yet here they are, a future in their grasps, and she drowns in that knowledge, not out of fear, but out of a want so deep that he looks up from his breakfast, blinking, and she shakes her head, forcing it away.

"Don't do that," he scolds.

"Do what?" She asks, but she knows. She plays with the mug of coffee in front of her anyway, looking in its murky depths, feeling the frustration welling in his chest and echoing in hers. Beneath the frustration, she sees the fear, the lingering unworthiness, like he still can't believe entirely that she came back for him, that she gave her heart to him. That forces her to release a breath and reach across the table for his hand. "No regrets," she says because she sees the question in his eyes.

"Aye." He believes that somewhere in him, buried under the weight of his own guilt, and he knows that she knows this. She also knows that he's got to come to terms with this himself. He turns her hand over in his, thumb tracing along the lines of her palm that he could reach and she can feel him thinking.

She gives him that time because they both need to adjust and they've got all the time in the world. At least until the next villain comes along - or until Rumpelstiltskin makes his next move.

...

People think there is something wrong with them, but the truth of the matter is that there isn't. They don't talk much, but that's because they still aren't good with words and it's so much easier to convey everything in short bursts of love when they connect eyes. Only Mary Margaret and David get it, probably because they know better than anyone what it means to share a heart.

"You get used to it," David says one morning to Killian as their loves stand off to the side, talking quietly as Emma holds Neal.

"Get used to what?" He replies, turning his gaze away from the tenderness in Emma's gaze when she looks down at her little brother. He thinks of her holding a child with a tuft of dark hair and green eyes and he wants it so much that she looks up at him, smiling softly, until her brother grabs her attention once more. He grits his teeth and forces the feeling away; David studies him intently.

"The emotion thing, it was confusing for the longest time, I thought I was going insane when it first happened, didn't know at the time that we were sharing hearts," David admits, grinning faintly at that first morning when he woke up to his wife and to her emotions, thrumming strongly within him.

"How...?"

David grins more, grateful that he has time to think of what to say to his friend - because that's what Hook is now, a strange turn of events - to make this easier. "Well, let's just say that we figured something would happen, can't be only us that goes through it." He doesn't sound too upset that his only daughter is sharing hearts with a pirate that tried to kill them all only a week. "When did you guys notice?"

"When we first got to Storybrooke," he admits, remembering that first day back, the way he waited for the town to turn him into a shish kabob for all the trouble he gave them. Emma's kiss brought him comfort, enough to get back into town, but it lingers in his veins, a guilt that he can't purge with kisses. No matter how glorious they are.

"Haven't talked about it?" He guesses.

Killian avoids the question. "Did you guys?"

"No."

"Same."

Together, they sit in silence for a good long while until David musters up the courage to finally speak. "For what it's worth, I'm happy you're not dead anymore," he says, wincing at the way it comes out.

Killian snorts, but there's no amusement to it.

"When you died, it was... hard. I didn't think she would be okay, I've never seen Emma fall apart like that before, not even when she and Henry crossed that town line and we thought we'd never see her again," he continues, dragging a french fry through ketchup. Killian winces at the reminders of that time, of the sound of her sobs, the ones that he still hears in his dreams. "Anyway, you make my daughter happy and that's all I could ever ask for her. So stop feeling guilty about what you did as the Dark One when everyone forgave you a long time ago."

"What?"

"Everyone forgave you a long time ago. We've all done dark things, we can't hold what happened against with you, especially after what you did. You're a good man, Killian Jones - for a pirate," David tacks on, smiling at the contemplative look on Killian's face.

Maybe a few kind words aren't enough for everything to be better, but it's a start in the right direction. He tells Emma the same later that night as he strokes her hair, finally talking about the hellish time in the Underworld, that time when he thought he would never see her again.

He talks about seeing Milah, about finally getting to say good-bye to his first love. He talks about seeing Liam, his elder brother, and his experience with his father and Liam, his younger brother.

Her whispers back, questions and comments and kisses when it becomes too much, bring him as much comfort as David's words do.

...

Their lives are far from perfect, weighed down by past regrets that they'll never shake and guilt that won't ever fade, but each day becomes bearable then happy.

One morning, a few months after their ordeal, she questions the pleasant apprehension filling him as they stand outside their house, snow drifting down and sticking to their hair, to their skin, and he's holding her hand tightly. At her question, he releases it, stepping back from her.

He grins and scratches behind his ear, a sure sign of something about to come and she has a very good idea of what it is. "Emma Swan," he says, lost in her eyes, the apprehension trickling away as he allows himself to bask in the knowledge that she loves him and he loves her. He sends that to her, his words stuck in his throat, and he sinks to one knee, his carefully prepared speech slipping out the window. "We both know how we were when we first met, there's no need to dredge up memories of the past except to say that you reminded me of the man I could be, the one I _wanted_ to be. For me and to be the man you deserve. You're my anchor and you're my heart - literally. Will you marry me?"

It's less than everything he meant to say, but everything he could possibly put into words without butchering his proposal. Her eyes are watery and her smile is wide and her response is short, but he feels everything she does and he knows what it will be, knows everything that really means to say in that one word.

"Yes."

As he takes the ring from her, laughing as he does so. She gave him her heart those months ago in the Underworld, tying them together, and when he slips that ring on her finger, tying them together once more, he feels it beat in unison with hers


	6. Plastic Ornaments

In response to all the pain you guys want to inflict on me with your fanfiction (you know who you are, I'm looking at you!) so here's fluff for Christmas. Happy holidays everyone! Features Captain Swan Cobra stuff mainly.

* * *

 **Prompt** : Christmas + baby shenanigans

* * *

"...Love?" His call ends on a questioning note that immediately puts Emma on edge.

She discards the garland cord she's trying to put around the fireplace, brushing the green pines from her ghastly, yet only second in warmth to the human furnace that is Killian Jones, sweater as she does so. The decision to put the Christmas tree in a different room than the fire place to avoid any catastrophes meant she couldn't watch her family while she did this part of the decorating. She walks across the wooden floor to where Killian stands in the threshold between the two rooms.

"Killian? Please don't tell me the tree is crooked, I'm telling you, it's the best we're going to get with that tree topper and- _William_!" A charming one year turns at the sound of his name, giving her a dirty look like she's the one sitting in the middle of all the Christmas presents and in the process of opening all of them. The Christmas tree stands undamaged, still twinkling merrily, but all the presents she had spent the last two days wrapping are scattered around the baby in various states of undress, the evidence sticking to her son's fingers as he tries to shake the tape off, unconcerned that his mother is staring at him.

Instead of feeling intense rage, she feels the urge to laugh more than anything. "I think we should have left the presents in our closet until Christmas Eve, love," Killian tells her, wrapping his arms around her from behind and tugging her backwards to his chest.

"Maybe, but he's just like his father, always try to get to the buried treasure," she sighs, a hint of teasing to her voice as she leans back into his chest. His warmth burns through her sweater, soothing her, and she turns around in his arms, pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips as William rips open another present with glee. "Well, I should probably call Henry over, it looks like someone wants to have Christmas early and there's no way I'm wrapping this mountain again."

"We could probably slap a bow on it all and still wait for the 25th," Killian argues, tightening his arms around her when she goes to pull away. She raises her brow, he didn't think that would work anyway, he was having a hard enough time avoiding the gifts that he knew were his (because he knew they weren't Henry's, or William's, or hers and that only left him). "Or I'll wrap the presents myself."

Incredulously, she asks, "You do remember that issue with the tape, right?"

"I didn't think my hook would be that much of a help and a hinderence at that, but I'll just try again, can't be that hard. Come on, it's our first Christmas without something going horribly wrong yet, l... want this to go better," he says, voice lowering, not looking at her. It's true, this is their first Christmas without something happening; she either didn't know who he was, he didn't know who she was, he was dead, or they were all being overrun by venomous elves. Everyone in town is tense for that reason, but them more than anything.

As the savior, the sheriff, and the princess, she's often in the middle of these things. Last year was horrible when, only two days after William's birth, she had to give him to the fairies for protection while she handled the elves. (She knows they weren't actually elves, some weird creatures that the personification of Winter had conjured up, but with pointy ears and some real name she didn't know, she settled on elves a long time ago).

She doesn't want anything to interfere with their plans this year, she wants to have one cliche holiday with her family.

William being impatience wasn't exactly one of the things she had been watching out for since it turned December. It wasn't the worse thing either, it was very fixable in a way all the other holidays weren't, and she sighs, dropping her forehead to his chest briefly before lifting her head. "Oh, alright, we still have a lot of wrapping paper left anyway."

He laughs, thankfully not pointing out that she's the one who bought quite a few stacks of wrapping paper because she wanted more than one. "You grab William, I'll grab the gifts?" He asks, hook and hand sliding down her back, an obvious attempt to distract her that he knows will fail.

She catches his wrists before he can brush against her ass, laughing. "Nice try, but you can't see your presents and I know mine are still hidden in the closet. You get William cleaned up, I'll go put everything away again and call you when I'm done with yours."

"Don't peek at your presents either!" He protests when she pulls away from him.

She snorts, picking up William and pressing a kiss to his chubby cheek before passing him along to his father. Even with a hook for a hand, Killian masters how to hold a child one with one arm without stabbing either of them. Which makes her laugh because, for the few months after William's birth, Killian refused to wear the hook at all until she put her foot down. (Really, the hook was one of those things that he'd had for so long that not having was difficult and she happened to enjoy it very much). "I won't."

"Come on, lad, want something to eat?" He asks, turning to leave the room while Emma leans down to scoop up the presents.

...

Their next catastrophe occurs the very next day. All the presents are done, but hiding away in the closet until Christmas Eve and the house is fully decorated for the holiday. Maybe a bit much so. Neither of them celebrated this holiday much, her because the abundance of foster homes growing up and him because such a holiday didn't exist until he met them, but both wanted to give William something that other people seemed to cherish.

So it's no surprise that William is, yet again, at the start of the issue on December 21st.

"Killian, get your son!" She calls with a scowl, holding the tree up and holding William away with her foot as he reaches out, trying to tug on the lights. The fact that he could have tugged the tree down on his head if she hadn't checked on him before work still makes her heart race.

"He's my son when he gets in trouble, but when he says Dave's name, he becomes yours, I'm starting to see a pattern here," he jokes from the kitchen, where he was bent over maps and a cup of coffee, the latter of which she can hear him set on the table. His chair scrapes across the floor as he stands up, but he's silent until he enters the room, stopping abruptly at he takes in the scene.

Emma is holding the tree up and trying to fix whatever their son did to nearly topple it, William is trying to go over her leg to get to a shiny red ornament near the bottom of the tree. The only thing missing is Henry, who happens to come down the stairs at that moment as though summoned by their thoughts, and pauses in the doorway as well.

"Lad, you want to get your brother while I help your mum?"

"Sure," says Henry, so much taller now that he's rapidly approaching adulthood. The sound of his voice is enough for William to stop straining, turn on his heels, and fall on his butt while holding his arms out, cheerfully squealing. "Hey midget, I'm starting to think you're the Scrooge and you don't like Christmas, but I know you don't know what that is yet. I'll read it to you someday."

Her heart warms at the sight, pulling her from the conundrum of the now lopsided tree. When she first discovered she was pregnant, her first instinct was how Henry would react to knowing that he would have a sibling that would have both parents as they grew up. Would he feel the way she did when she found her parents were having baby Neal? The jealousy, the anger, the desperation at both the baby and her parents until she made amends, true amends, with her parents? It was horrible timing, considering Regina and Robin, his other parent figures, were wrapped up in Robin's baby girl, even if said child was nearly a year old at that point.

Her son was an infinitely better person than her though. He took it in stride, quiet reluctance at first, but growing enthusiasm as the months went on, often reading stories to her belly whenever Killian wasn't telling the baby stories about his time on the seas. (Extremely edited ones, mind you.) (People spent more time talking to the baby during her pregnancy than they did to her.)

Henry loves his little brother.

Henry loves. Period, that's it, he loves pretty much unconditionally, without the reservations and distrust that Emma did.

Watching them interact, she's rather happy about this minor almost catastrophe if only to see this moment and have this epiphany.

...

Christmas comes early, the sun just about rising and blinding her when she opens her eyes. Killian groans beside her, mumbling and sitting up; he always wakes up faster than her. She's a light sleeper, but he was a pirate for years who woke up at dawn and the first sign of trouble.

William's crying from his crib isn't the same as being attacked by Lost Boys or other pirates, but he still wakes up in much of the same way, climbing out of bed fluidly and easily, slipping into his sweats and walking the distance between their bedroom and William's in barely a second. Sometimes, he wakes up and handles it before Emma is ever truly awake, coming back to bed to wrap her in his arms so they can fall back asleep.

Not today though. It's Christmas.

Flutters erupt in her stomach, an excitement that surprises her enough that she lingers in bed for a minute longer until she hears Killian coming closer, responding to William's babble with fond words. She sits up, climbing out of bed and slipping her feet into the pajamas they had discarded carelessly last night. She goes down the stairs much in the same way: slowly, sleepily, but with a growing excitement in each step.

"Merry Christmas," Henry tells her, standing in the kitchen. He knows Emma isn't the best cook and Killian isn't either, both still learning, and takes it upon himself to make breakfast for them all before they open presents. They only get him until the afternoon and, after which, he goes to his other mother's for a holiday with that side of the family. Everyone meets at Regina's for dinner that night too.

"Merry Christmas, kid," she replies, smiling and setting up a cup of coffee, only mildly disappointed that he wasn't waiting impatiently for them to open Christmas presents.

"Merry Christmas, love, lad," Killian says brightly as he enters the room. William lifts his arm in an exaggerated wave while Killian sets him on the floor and he immediately attempts to leave the kitchen. They hear the music that tells them he's playing with his toys. "You need help, lad?"

"I'm sixteen now, I can definitely handle this." Ten minutes later, they see he can do exactly that as he sets plates on the table with eggs and bacon and sausage, even dumping some eggs into a bowl that he then sticks to William's high chair.

(William spills most of it in his seat).

They are still eating when they finally let a squirming William out of his seat. He gives a little gurgling laugh before toddling off while Killian and Henry talk animatedly about when they'll get to go sailing next and whether or not they could take a family vacation on the Jolly Rogers.

She smiles and relaxes, content with the way things are going.

Of course that's when things start to go wrong.

She stands at the sink, cleaning off the dishes from break, but turns off the water at the sudden lack of music from William's toys. Then she hears the unmistakable sound of something being ripped open. "William," she mutters, tossing her towel on the drying dishes. "Killian, your son is opening the presents again. Without us."

"William!" Henry and Killian cry in chorus, both jogging into the other room, where the baby giggles and she can hear him dropping to his knees, trying to crawl away. She follows after them because she can only imagine what disaster will occur next.

The floor creaks beneath her feet and instantly gets a response. "Don't come in here!"

She stops and asks suspiciously, "Why?"

Killian's hesitation is enough that she enters the room anyway.

Everyone is covered in various pieces of wrapping paper, even the tree has some long strips in it. Indeed, William is in the process of opening a perfectly nice and new hat that she got for Killian, tossing the wrapping paper that doesn't get stuck to his chubby hands in the direction of his father and brother. Killian, for his part, is throwing a blanket over a pile of presents that she guesses are hers and Henry is frantically trying to pick up the piles of ornaments off the floor, jamming them on the trees without quite paying attention, ignoring the piece of wrapping paper in his hair somehow.

"We need to put the baby gates up on more than just the stairs I think," she says, biting her lip when they both look up at her. She crosses the room, picking a piece of tape off William's hands and depositing a present under the tree that is only half opened, grateful that William didn't get all of them. No, he just made a huge mess with a few of them. They both look at her in varying degrees of disappointment that makes her stop, frowning. "What's wrong?"

Killian scratches behind his ear, the color of his eyes flashing in that way that tells her that she's thinking of how to reply, but Henry beats him to the touch. "Well, we wanted Christmas to go off without a hitch, but it seems like _someone_ here is trying to build up his resume as Ebenezer Scrooge." William giggles in her arms when they all look at him, waving his fists again.

"We wanted to give you a Christmas you deserved, the ones that your parents give for Neal and his other parents give to his other siblings, something for William to remember later," Killian says, sighing and scratching behind his ear. "Not quite going to plan though, the only thing that could go worse is the crocodile turning out to be Santa Claus as well."

Henry snorts. "That's one thing he isn't."

They banter a bit, but Emma ignores them. A warmness builds in her chest, like a fire that goes from embers to flames in an instant, until she can feel it clear to her toes. It's the same burst of love that broke Henry's sleeping curse all those years ago, but it doesn't dissipate even when as the two of them debate the likeliness of Rumpelstiltskin being Santa or Scrooge, nor does it dissipate as she crosses the distance between them, wrapping paper stick to her feet, and pulls them both into a hug that shocks them into silence.

"This isn't the Christmas I imagined, no, but don't think I'm not enjoying this, just us spending the morning together, cleaning up after William makes a mess and deciding whether a pirate ship is almost in league with a cruise ship, I spent so many holidays alone that just a few minutes of this is worth all the other headaches," she says, her head leaning on Killian and his arm around her back, Henry and William squished between the two of them, the latter of which tries to wiggle away. "Besides, none of us is being bitten by little elves or being run out of town, I'd say this year was a success. None of our ordinary problems can ruin this."

As if to taught her, William does a particularly spectacular yank on one of the ornaments and the entire tree, still lopsided from his ambush a few days prior, topples over their heads. Killian, the tallest of them and trying to shield them by pulling them closer to him, gets a nice whack to the head and the tree topper falls off the top of the tree, shattering into three large pieces on the floor. William laughs while the rest of them stand in shock.

Henry breaks from it first, untangling himself from the circle of arms and taking William away from her, playfully tapping his brother's nose. "I lied, I think he's building up his resume to be the Grinch instead."

Emma laughs, just a snort, then a chuckle, then, as Killian pushes the tree back into place, develops into a full laugh at the fake pines that stick to his hair and his pouting lips. As soon as the tree is leaning against the wall, she tugs him to her and kisses him, ignoring Henry's mock snort of disgust and William's giggles, the warmth in her chest blossoming enough that she's positive he can feel it as he responds back eagerly, his hands tightening on her waist.

He leans his forehead against hers. "Was that my present?" He asks, a half-grin on his face.

She hums, wrinkling her nose, her lips brushing against his as she speaks. "You get those for free, I'm not that cheap."

"Do I get a hint?"

"No, you can wait and open them, you did want a traditional Christmas, didn't you?"

He looks around the room obviously, his eyebrow raising. "I don't imagine Christmas is much like this at any of the other households." When he takes a step back, he winches abruptly, frowning down at the sharp bits of broken decorations on the floor.

She follows his gaze and snorts. "I imagine they were all smart enough to get plastic ornaments only."

"Next year," he promises.

(Next year is worse because two-thirds of the town turn into ghosts during a school play of _A Christmas Carol_ that doesn't end until the New Years. No one blames Henry for the magical potion mix-up that lead to it.)

(Everyone blames Henry.)


	7. Twenty-Eight Years

This is actually the sequel to a somewhat longer fic that I'll be posting someday. I'm sorry for the wait with updates, real life got busy and I had to go on a HIATUS when I lost my laptop. Feel free to send me any prompts if you've got some!

* * *

 **Prompt:** "I've missed this"

* * *

A flash of magic.

Henry, Henry dying, Henry smiling, _"You did it."_

Killian, Killian's smile fading, Killian's words, _"Well done, Swan."_

Mary Margaret, mom, her mom crying, _"Emma."_

David, dad, her dad holding her, _"Emma."_

Emma, Emma the orphan, Emma the _savior_.

The curse was broken, it was back to their happy endings for everyone, but Emma couldn't join in the festivities, even as they locked Regina and Rumpelstiltskin away, even as her son thrived under the love of his grandparents.

Everyone picked up where they left off, like they hadn't spent twenty-eight years under a curse.

It didn't feel like twenty-eight years, they would say when Henry asked.

Maybe that was the crux of the matter. It didn't feel like twenty-eight years for them, they woke up remembering a little girl all innocent and new and who would love. Instead of their dreams, they got Emma. Emma, who remembered their twenty-eight year long absence like a physical ache, who couldn't pretend like the rest of them like nothing happened, because the curse wasn't their entire lives but the curse was most certainly hers.

Why were they pretending that it didn't happen?

A pleasant jungle sounded as the door above the diner opened and she heard Ruby call a greeting to Mary Margaret and David, who smiled and waved back. Emma lifted her head, surprised to find that the clock read eight o'clock rather than six o'clock and that her mug of hot chocolate was long cold.

As if second sense told them she was here, they both turned simultaneously, seeming to know where she sat, a furrow of determination to both their brows. It was so... familiar and she couldn't figure out why for the longest moment, or she denied it, until Mary Margaret tilted her head and she could see the angle of her nose was identical to Henry's.

Henry had Mary Margaret's nose.

Mary Margaret, her mother.

These people were her parents.

Her parents, her parents, but they weren't her parents, were they? They didn't...

She lurched to her feet, knocking the mug over, and spared only a brief glance at the mess with wide eyes before she sprinted out of the diner.

Twenty-eight years without them and Emma couldn't be in the same room as them.

What kind of person was she?

She darted away from the loft she shared with them, heading down to the harbor instead. Nobody spent time there, the rickety dock a hazard more than anything, and if she wanted any privacy, she figured that was the place to go. They wouldn't look for her here, they thought her sanctuary would be her bug, but even that seemed wrong.

Twenty-eight years of aching for more and she couldn't stand to be around them, needed a few minutes of privacy because she felt she might scream. Henry was all she could handle, she hadn't been lying when she told August that before everything went to hell. Now she didn't even know where August was and she couldn't yell at him, the only one who knew how time passed, the only one who remembered before and during and after.

Figured she wouldn't get much of a choice in the rest. Nothing was ever her choice.

She figured she would hate herself later for being stupid, for snubbing the family she had always dreamed of, but as she reached the harbor, the breeze off the ocean a much needed chill, she let her have this moment. She didn't cry, somehow she couldn't make them come, but she shook like she was, her lips trembling and her shoulders shaking, not a tear in sight.

"You'll catch your death out here and I imagine that would put a damper on the festivities, lass."

She didn't jump at his voice. Truthfully, she had heard footsteps, but ignored them, hoping Mary Margaret or David or whichever well meaning civilian would take a hike. That voice though, she hadn't heard it since before the curse broke and she turned almost instinctively, frowning. "Killian?"

His hair was a mess, like he had spent a long time running his hand through it for less than savory reasons, purple bruises beneath his eyes to match hers, like he couldn't sleep since the curse broke anymore than she could. She could see the fire now, the one she had seen from the beginning, hidden beneath the fear. That must have been the real him. This must be the real him: the leather, the vest, the necklaces and charms, the hook where his prosthetic used to be.

She remembered, briefly, asking who he was in the other land, never receiving a response from anybody. She couldn't ask him either; he vanished from Storybrooke as soon as the curse broke, clearly not wanting anyone to find him.

"Most people go by my more colorful moniker: Hook." He held it up, noticing where her eyes had gone, and though he tried to sound humorous, she could detect the edge of unease under his words.

She squinted at him. Captain Hook. She could see it, but she couldn't make call him Hook, it just didn't fit. She knew him as Killian and, damn it, she wanted one thing to stay the same. "Is that what you would prefer me to call you?"

His head tilted. "No," he said seriously. He blinked, the same look he did before, where his words surprised him, but rather than stutter out an apology, he smirked at her. "I do like the way my name sounds on your tongue."

She snorted. "Good to know."

"Not going to punch me or something?"

"Do you have a thing for people beating you up now? I thought you did before, because you didn't really fight for anything, but I figured that was the curse," she said absently. He shivered. She eyed his clothes, particularly the exposure of his chest and while she wasn't complaining for it, she was finally getting a glimpse at something that she had only dreamed of before, she figured that he was probably cold. "You should probably put on your old clothes."

"The hook clashes," he said tightly.

"Right because Captain Hook has a thing for fashion, I must have missed that detail in the movie. What with the perm and everything," she said without thinking. She flinched, remembering that this whole thing wasn't a joke, that he wasn't playing at being Captain Hook just to make her laugh, that he was Captain Hook before she was even born. Which reminded her... "How old are you?"

"It's not polite to ask someone's age."

"We both know I'm not polite and you're supposed to be a pirate."

"You can be polite, you just choose when to use it."

"Don't avoid the question."

He scratched behind his ear, a nervous twitch she had seen more often in his time as Cursed Killian than the flirting jokes of the real one. "More or less three hundred years."

"You don't know?"

"You lose track of time on Neverland. Plus the twenty-eight years of the curse."

"People can barely remember what happened during the curse," at least until Emma came around, but she didn't say as much. He looked at her in a way that made her think he noticed, but made no comment. "And nobody aged, I don't think it counts."

"After a hundred years, every extra time alive counts," he said, narrowing his eyes.

She waited for him to explain further, but he didn't. He looked away from her, out onto the water, and Emma waited a fraction of a moment longer, just to give him time to collect himself, before blurting out: "What does that mean?"

"Nothing important."

"Way to be vague. I thought old you was annoying."

"How rude," he said, snorting.

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"What are you, five?"

He raised a brow. "Says the one using a retort from the 1990s."

"You don't even remember the 1990s!" She said, exasperated.

"I remember enough."

And maybe he did, maybe he did remember some of the years that he was here, stuck under a curse. But that wasn't true because he didn't, he didn't remember any of the curse, he would be like everyone else expecting things to go back to the way they were, not realizing that everything had changed.

Nobody remembered before and during and after the curse.

And maybe that's why she shot to her feet, jabbing his chest with her fingers, ignoring the feel of his skin and the widening of his eyes. "No, you don't! It was the blink of an eye for you, just a bunch of days where everything was the exact same, you probably wouldn't even remember how long you were under until everyone else started spouting off how long it was based off how old I was! And now the curse is broken and you can go back to being whoever you were before because those twenty-eight years _don't matter!"_ She sucked in a breath, because her throat hurt from yelling and her eyes burned and she realized as a tear dripped off her jaw that she was finally, _finally_ crying.

She turned away, swiping beneath her eyes, but now that they were coming, they didn't seem to be making any attempt at stopping. Crying helped, she knew it did, but she didn't want to be facing anyone when it struck.

He caught her wrist, tugging her back over, and she only caught a glimpse of his face, the clenched jaw and the flashing eyes, before he was hugging her against him. His hook was on her back, holding her in place,but his hand ran through her hair soothingly, as he did that night after Graham's funeral. She shuddered, clutching the lapels of his jacket, her nose pressed into neck.

She didn't cry more, she didn't think she had that in her, not even around him, but she didn't stop the ones from falling, just breathing, just thinking. She had only hugged him twice, once after Graham died and another time when she thought there was no chance at saving Mary Margaret, and she thought that this would be different, that a hug from Cursed Killian would be different than a hug from Real Killian.

It wasn't.

When her breathing was more even, when she was contemplating pulling away, he said, "I remember only what the curse let me. I remember having a brother and I remember having a woman to love, I remember losing both. I don't remember anything different between the first year of the curse and the tenth year of the curse or even the twenty-seventh year of the damn thing." He paused. She didn't feel much better and thought about telling him he needed to take a class on it. He continued before she could, "But those years did matter."

She frowned, lifting her head some, her hair catching on the rings on his hand. "You just said you don't remember."

"I don't remember all of it," he amended. "I remember enough to know the man I was before, while cowardly, was probably a better man than the one I am now, but I have no wish to return to him. Those years matter because it reminded me of Liam, of Milah, of what they meant to me and sometime over the past three hundred years-"

"Give or take," she added.

"Over the past three hundred years, give or take, I've let revenge become the only thing I could think of. I barely remember the sound of his voice or the color of her eyes, I don't remember how they laughed, I don't remember how they yelled. I only remembered how they died."

"I don't understand."

"I didn't think I could ever let go of them until the curse, until the curse showed me how it would be if I cared little for them when they died."

She pulled back more, his hand falling from her hair to rest on either side of her waist. "How is that a good thing?"

He smiled, his eyes turning wistful. "Now that the curse is broken, I remember more than how they died. I remember things from before the curse and I remember things from during the curse, even if the latter are false."

She didn't know why he was telling her any of this. "I don't understand still."

"I'm really buggering this up, aren't I?" He let go of her, nearly scratching his nose with his hook before seeming to remember how bad of an idea that was. He let it drop down again. "I'm telling you this because no matter what you think, I can't go back to the way I was before. Too much has changed since then."

She stared, speechless, but he continued before she could say anything. "And I'm fairly certain the rest of your family can't either."

"They don't remember any of it. They just woke up as Snow White and Prince Charming again, they're looking for the baby girl they put into a wardrobe maybe two weeks ago. But it wasn't two weeks ago." She tried not to sound bitter about that, she really did, but it leaked through anyway.

"No, but you've got the rest of your lives to make up for lost time, aye? Seems they just don't want to miss out on anything else."

"...I know." She did know. That didn't make it any easier. These weren't foster parents, if they sent her back they wouldn't just be another name in her book of disappointments, if they decided they hated or that she was worthless or that _she_ was the disappointment then... Well, that would be it for her.

She didn't know if she could survive that. Twenty-eight years of living without them, but craving for them meant she didn't know what to do now that she had them. Late, but better than never.

They didn't remember time passing, but they saw the evidence of it. In her, in Henry.

She sighed, leaning her forehead on his shoulder. He stiffened for a moment, but relaxed into it, running his hand through her hair again.

They stood there for a long time, not speaking, until at last the sun was high above their heads, the heat of it burning her neck. He chuckled, gently pulling his hand away and pushing her back. "Perhaps time to head home. I imagine your family will be looking for you."

She had left the diner in a rush quite a few hours ago and she had been ignoring her phone as it vibrated in her pockets, but Emma was reluctant to leave. "Yeah," she said anyway, clearing her throat, shoving her hands into the pocket of her jeans. "I... I should probably go. Thank you for... being there."

"Truthfully, I've missed this," he said quietly.

"You missed having some random chick cry at you?" She joked weakly, tilting her head away to hide her blush.

"I've missed having a reason to be close to you. Our... friendship was important to me." She didn't think he meant friendship, but she also didn't think she could add his feelings for her onto of everything else she needed to do now. Maybe in the future.

The fact that she was entertaining that idea at all is one of the reason she knew that she had to leave. She offered him a tentative smile, because even if she wanted to run from it, she didn't want him to do the same, she didn't want him to give up on her.

"Don't hide anymore. Wherever you've been hiding," she said instead.

"Aye, I'll try to remember that."

"That was supposed to be a hint about you telling me where you've been."

"Maybe another day, love, you can't use me as an excuse to avoid them."

She laughed, the sound croaky after crying and sitting in the wind, but more truthful than anything she had done in two weeks.

"See ya, Killian."

He nodded, lifting his hook in farewell. Emma might have looked back over her shoulder the entire walk back to the loft, even when he long disappeared from sight, but she wouldn't admit to that.


	8. Pirates Say Rum

for emmaswanshair on tumblr.

 **prompts** : coconut rum + butts

* * *

As when most things go wrong in Storybrooke, they heard the news from Leroy first, who sprinted to the entrance of Granny's and would have most likely shot straight through the glass if Emma hadn't been making her way out just that moment. He bypassed her completely, skidding to a stop in front of David and Snow, panting for breath.

Despite Emma being the sheriff, the king and queen still make priority sometimes. Or all the time. Emma doesn't make a fuss about it, her brows drawn together in thought as she turned back to the group, taking her spot by Killian's side.

"They are here!"

"Care to be more specific, mate?" Killian asked while the rest exchanged puzzled, tired looks after just dealing with a catastrophe of Regina's Evil Queen alter ego sorts.

"Pirates!"

Leroy went on, but everyone looked at Killian which was a little insulting because he certainly didn't deserve for them to look at him like he was about to go Captain Hook on them. He hadn't done anything remotely nefarious in ages. Well, okay, except for that time that he maybe stole all of Charming's left shoes, but that was a prank that Henry orchestrated and he couldn't take the entire blame for it.

He kept his face blank, but something like unworthiness was creeping up his spine and across his shoulders, bringing tension with it that had his hand clenching by his side. Despite all he had done, despite all that he had lost and regained, he probably wouldn't see those looks of distrust go away.

Her hand brushed his. He let a breath out, looking over at Emma, who had backtracked at Grumpy's exclamation, standing by his side and he could have believed, for a second, that it was an accident, until her thumb touched his knuckles gently. Instinctively, he uncurled his hand, letting her palm fit against his, her fingers finding a place in between his.

He let out a breath, blinking back the demons that would only disappear with time, lighter already just holding her, knowing that his place was at her side regardless of what other's thought.

-and considering David had laughed about the shoe thing and Snow still fussed over him when she could, he didn't think they objected to his presence all that much. Or they were very talented liars, but he knew that wasn't the case, especially with Snow White.

Which was probably rude to think, but nonetheless true.

"Do you know them?" David said, interrupting Killian's internal monologue.

"Pardon?"

"The pirates - what were their names, Leroy?"

For having pirates enter their harbor, without any of them knowing and without any of them knowing who they were, the prince was remarkably calm.

Perhaps everyone was numb to the never ending parade of disasters that Storybrooke attracted and just learned to accept it.

"We didn't... they came after us when we went to see what was happening, yelling at us to run, and we left to warn everyone," Leroy explained, shifting his pickaxe from one shoulder to the other in either a show of strength or nervousness.

Killian didn't bother deciphering which one, suddenly struck with the reason why everyone was looking at him: they thought he would know, that he could help with knowledge the rest of them didn't possess. Which was foolish, of course, because he had been in Neverland for 300 hundred years and hadn't spent much time on the sea upon his return before Regina cast her curse, but it was thoughtful all the same.

The lingering weight, the kind that Emma's touch hadn't sent away, fell away with his exhale.

"Not entirely helpful, but it would be best to keep an eye on them regardless. Anyone I know from the past isn't likely to be an ally," he said.

"What, you mean you didn't make friends with all your rival pirates?" Emma asked, her lips twitching up in a rather distracting smile that had him spending a long moment just looking at her. Her eyes darkened, quite correctly reading his thoughts, before Prince Neal gave an impressive belch and they both broke away, identical expressions of guilt on their face.

Nobody noticed - or they didn't comment, probably not wanting to know what the savior and the pirate did in their free time. Which wasn't much of anything, thank you very much, because this town had so many of the formerly mentioned disasters.

"Mom, can you stay with Henry? Just until we find out who they are."

"Emma-" Snow shared a long look with David, a conversation taking place between their eyes, before she heaved a sigh, nodding her head. "Alright, Neal and I will head over to your place, I'll call Regina and let her know of our... unexpected guests. Let me know if _anythin_ g happens."

Emma gave a little salute that made Killian laugh and Snow relax. She dropped her hand abruptly, rolling her eyes at him, before directing her next round of orders to Leroy. "Take the dwarves, hang out at the Rabbit Hole, if they are anything like most pirates, they'll sniff out a tavern."

He silently agreed, knowing that after months at sea, there were only a few places that a person would go and Storybrooke only offered one of them. Never mind never being to Storybrooke at all, they would sniff it out.

"Dad, keep an eye out here. Killian, let's go to the docks, maybe you'll recognize the _boat_." He was quite sure that she did that on purpose, no doubt attempting to add levity to a situation that none of them want to deal with anymore. Before he can correct her, the rest of the group head out the door with their orders, none of them bothering to argue as they usual did.

If that doesn't say how exhausted all of them are, nothing will.

...

It's an unusually cold, but they are right next to the sea in the rapidly approaching winter so neither of them are much surprised about it. He drew her into his side, his arm around her shoulders, feeling her relax against him and he can't help the little bubble of happiness that blooms in him every time she does something like this.

Emma wasn't one for easy affection, at least not in the beginning, especially not when they might be walking into danger, but now he can't imagine her anywhere else except right beside him.

They don't make a menacing sight and he guessed that's why nobody tried to jump out at them as they step up onto the dock, the planks creaking under their feet, making their way cautiously to the ship that isn't familiar. She leaned closer as they stop a good distance away, not quite hidden from view but standing in the shadow of another ship. Her face tilted into his shoulder, but it isn't to burrow in his warmth so much as to ask a question: "Do you recognize it?"

He studied the ship intently. It was likely a fine ship once upon a time, but either their voyage was a long one that kept them from proper maintenance or their captain was horrid. It's much larger than the Roger is, both in width and length, but it's far less majestic. Their sail is no longer white, more resembling dirt along the beach, and torn in more than one place; it would likely need to be replaced entirely with the amount of work needed to put it back into place. The hull needs some repairs from the minimal of it he can see, but he wouldn't let anyone step foot on it if the water level told him anything of its safety.

If he guessed right, he would say the coloring of the ship used to be a shade of red that had long since faded to an orange-yellow.

If there is name written along the side, it's too far or too faded for him to see it and there is no flag hanging.

Nothing about the ship was familiar. "No, I had no use for poorly tended vessels such as this," he said with mild disgust, only allowing for a brief moment of pity if it was indeed a long voyage that kept them from keeping the ship. He cant help feeling uncomfortable as his eyes traced the rigging, feeling oddly like they were being watched, yet when he looked at the crow's nest, it was empty.

He cleared his throat because while he doesn't see who might be watching them, he had nearly three centuries of life from trusting his gut and he wasn't about to go against the flow now. "Best move along then before one of them notice that we are here."

"We-"

Her phone rang before she could finish speaking, the shrill cry making them both flinch, and she fished it out of her pocket without extracting herself from his embrace. Which is impressive considering her phone was in the pocket pressed into his hip and she had to do a little and terribly cute wiggle to get it out. He didn't comment on said wiggle just then, but he did put it into a box of things labeled _Swan_.

For future reference, of course, not for any other reason. No sir, no way.

Killian Jones did not keep track of all the things his true love did that both surprised and endeared him. Nope, definitely not.

(Except he totally did).

(He wasn't going to tell anyone that).

...

...

As it turned out, there was someone watching them; three men sat below deck, peering out from a window that had seen better days, all drawn by what sounded like a fellow crewman's singing. That is, Emma's phone, but they didn't know what phones are at the time and could only assume that the awful noise was one of the two people standing on the docks, perhaps trying to hide but failing entirely.

A burly one with yellow hair resembling hay thumbed the sword hanging at his waist. He was the biggest of the group, his shoulders said to span the width of two men, and also the smartest, happening upon his role of Second Mate for quite relevant reasons. Of course, this meant that one of the other men, a tall, slim man who appeared to be missing a chunk of his nose and whose hair had mysteriously grown on only one side of his head waited for orders, as he was the stupidest and didn't quite know what to do without someone telling him.

Neither of them were allowed to speak though because the other man, average in just about every way from his height, to his weight, to the curve of his lips, his reddish hair the only unique thing about him, was the Captain. He wasn't the smartest, nor the biggest, or the oldest, or the wisest - but he knew how to make think he was all of those things and earned his rank of Captain for a reason.

They called him Redbeard for the beard that took up half his face and he was a very patient man, but like the other members of his crew, he had spent many months upon a restless sea and he only wished for a few minutes on dry land, something to eat that wasn't fish or stew, and rum.

Lots of rum.

They had run out a good few weeks ago, having to content themselves with water.

Redbeard liked water as much as the next person, but sometimes one needed something stronger. This happened to be one of those sometimes.

"We settin' off, Cap?" The man with only half a head of hair asked. They called him Orc, because it was either that or leave the ship since nobody thought that Mallory was a very fitting pirate name.

The burly one, who didn't speak either out of choice or because he knew little English, tilted his head, silently supporting the question. He had never told them his name so the crew had come to calling him Skip for his ability to fling a rock across the water twenty-one times - and also because he once flung good ole Tom into the water, where he bounced twice before sinking beneath the waves.

Of his eight crewmen still living, Orc and Skip were the only two who had awaited orders before leaving the ship, the rest of them fleeing the deck before they were even docked. Indeed, good ole Tom was probably only just reaching the shore after missing the dock entirely and landing in the water.

(Aside from surviving the trip, Tom didn't have much luck).

"Aye," Redbeard said, having spent a long time watching the man and the woman on the dock, trying to puzzle out the weird device the woman held to her ear. He scratched his beard, crossing the room and throwing open the hatch, where it banged against the deck of the ship, hobbling his way up the stairs. Skip went first, pulling Orc up by his wrist and only dropped him again when they were standing on the dock.

The man and the woman were gone.

...

...

Emma burst into the Rabbit Hole first, similar to Leroy's arrival at Granny's only forty minutes prior, something that Killian would notice later with some interest. He didn't just then because he was right behind her and thus narrowly avoided the door nailing him in the face from her forceful entry. Both their cheeks were red from their run, having sprinted from the docks to the bar without a break. He resolved to pick up jogging more often, finding that the stitch in his side was more painful than it ought to be.

Nobody noticed their entrance which wasn't entirely fair since he thought it was a fairly dramatic entrance that required some notice, but clearly everyone was distracted by the brawl taking place in the middle of the bar. One pirate with an eye-patch held another with no hair in a headlock while another wearing all green punched him in the gut. A man rose from his seat at a nearby table lifted an empty stool, raising it above his head and throwing it with all his might.

It was considerable might too because it bypassed the men entirely. Killian tightened his grip on her hip, jerking her into his arms and falling backwards as the stool crashed into the door where they were just standing. Unfortunately, a man just walking in took the blow and crumpled to the floor. He was largely unnoticed, at least for the moment as Killian lifted his hand to brush over her head, her neck, her back, her sides, checking for an injury.

Her fingers clutched the lapels of his jacket, surprise taking up half her face as she lifted herself up just enough to scan him as well, straddling his hips as she did so. He let his hand and hook rest on her hips. "Well, if you wanted me on my back, all you had to do was ask," he said softly, biting back his grin, only laughing when she scowled and helping her get up, well aware of their public location. "Up you go, lass."

"If you've got time to flirt then you're clearly alright," she said dryly, standing up on her own two feet. Another swear and another crash broke through the brief moment.

This time, he echoed her frown with one of his own, climbing to his feet with little difficult and striding across the room, grabbing the wrist of the man throwing stools tightly. "Enough," He said, not in a shout, but sharp enough that the men all froze in place. It wouldn't have worked quite so well with anyone else, few pirates were loyal to their own captain let alone to a random one they had never met, but he recognized the stance of these ones, the kind that heard authority in a voice and followed blindly.

"Let that one go," Emma ordered, pointing at the man still trapped in a headlock, who looked to be going an interesting shade of red from lack of air. The man holding him twitched, eyeing her speculatively, only following suit when she rested her hand on the gun at her hip, recognizing the threat. He released the other man, who spluttered and fell to his knees.

"There isn't enough room in the brig for all of them, Swan," he said, flinging the wrist away from him and absently scratching his scruff, taking a step away from the silent and frozen men. He looked around, trying to spot the

"Mm, true." She tilted her head, regarding the pirates with a wrinkled nose. "Where are the dwarves?"

"Right here, sister," said Leroy from the corner, supporting one of his brother's and struggling to his feet. Emma went over to help him up as he explained, "Sleepy took a nice hit before we realized what was happening. I'll go get him somewhere and let James- David- know. You two got 'em handled?"

They both looked over at the pirates, who were sitting around a table nursing drinks absently, grumbling under their breaths while Killian stood just a bit away, absently fiddling with his hook whenever one of them made a move as though to stand. She couldn't hear what they were saying, only a snippet of the conversation floating over them as the bar's regulars silently fled.

Dryly, she said, "I think we're fine, let David know that we're here, he might have to get the cells ready for... six people."

Leroy tilted his head in acknowledgment, shuffling to the door with Sleepy's arm slung around his shoulders, and disappearing outside with only mild complaints. Mostly when he had to step over the unconscious man, who was still largely forgotten.

She waited until the door shut behind him before heading back to Killian, sliding her hand into his with a small sigh. She nudged him with her shoulder. "Don't suppose you've figured out what to do with them, _Captain_?"

"None of them are the Captain," he said as a reply, fingers tightening around her own and pulling her some distance away for privacy, still staying in the men's line of sight.

She chewed on her lip. "Which is slightly more worrying than the brawling."

"My thoughts exactly," he agreed.

"Do you recognize any of them?"

A smile tugged at his lips. "Not in the slightest."

"Brilliant."

The door opened before they can continue, an average looking man with a mane of red hair entered, lingering over the man still slumped on the floor. "Good ole Tom, the poor sod," the man said with an accompanying eye roll, gesturing sharply down at him. "Orc, get him back to the ship."

"Aye, Cap," the man named Orc said with a look of longing at the bar before he crouched down, slinging Tom's arm around his shoulders, looking much too small under the other man's larger weight. Once more, the door opened and closed.

"I found the Captain," said Emma lightly, wincing as a beast of a man stepped inside after Orc left, having to duck his head slightly to avoid bashing it on his way in. He was like a taller, more muscular Tiny though she hoped he was a bit less resistant to magic if it came to that.

Thankfully, they didn't have to worry about that as the Captain heard something outside and directed Skip to help. As he left, the Captain noticed them. His eyes lit up when he spotted her, as most men did when suddenly looking into the face of stunning beauty, until he spotted Killian just beside her, his face draining of color in the split second it took him to recognize the hook.

"Well, have Skip hit me and call me Tom, if it ain't the dreaded Captain Hook!" He said with a faint accent. Then, because Skip had looked confused but obedient, he said, "Not really, Skip."

Skip grunted.

"Pardon? Who are you?" Killian said, looking warily at both of the men.

"Aye, I suppose you wouldn't know. Captain Redbeard of _the Black Falcon._ " He swept into a bow, clearly more directed at Killian than it was directed at her, who had stiffened suddenly at the ship's name. "You have quite the reputation, Captain Hook. Tis an honor."

Killian cleared his throat. "Indeed, an honor to meet you, Captain Redbeard. I'm afraid though that this town is currently under my protection, I can't let your crew run rampant." Which was slightly true, he couldn't and wouldn't let this man, whoever he was behind that alias, run amok through the town. No need to let the man know that the dreaded Captain Hook hadn't done anything pirate-like in quite a while.

Why ruin his reputation when it was going to give them advantage?

He expected Redbeard to react, to say something wordy and polite to hide the fact that he disagreed, but the man merely nodded, waving his hand. "Aye, we want no trouble, just some time in port before we set off again, I don't fancy staying in this land any longer than I have to." His eyes were lingering distrustfully on the fan above their heads, twirling lazily.

"Captain! Ze run iz better than I recall!" One man announced from the table, holding his drink up in salute, the rest of the men following suit, calling their greetings.

Redbeard laughed, nodding, inclining his head. "Draw up a seat for yourself and your lady, Captain, I'll buy you a drink."

Emma, however, didn't respond as Redbeard headed for the bar, struck silent by the crewman's words. She grabbed Killian's arm before he could wander away, garnering a grunt as her nails dug into his arm even through his jacket. He glanced down, frowning at her, and she tilted her head, murmuring, "Did he just say run?"

"His accent is difficult to understand, but I do believe he was saying rum-" Killian stopped, his eyes widening. "Oh. You don't think..?"

She nodded, biting her lip to keep from laughing at the flabbergasted look on his face. "I think so."

"You're telling me when ran to the docks, then all the way here, then nearly got decapitated by a stool, because Leroy couldn't understand a bloody accent?"

"Yes."

"Thought they said run when they met rum, I can't bloody believe this," Killian muttered, shaking his head. "Well, best play nice, Swan, wouldn't want the pirates to change their minds." It was more sarcastic than he intended, the result of adrenaline dropping far quicker than normal, but she ignored it. Still snorting, she dropped into the seat next to him and drawing out her phone to send an update to her mother and father.

...

"And what do they say about me these days, lads?" Killian asked idly a few hours later while Redbeard slumped against the table in a drunken sleep after their competition.

"They say you 'ave a harem in three different lands," Orc announced, to cheers from the rest of the pirates while Killian pretended to be unaffected. His eyes and ears betrayed him, the former flickering to look at an amused Emma and the tips of his ears turning pink.

"Afraid not," he answered.

Another man piped in. "That you once made a man jump off the ship with just a look."

"True," he admitted, although the whole thing was more complicated.

"That you fought the dark one and won."

He tensed slightly, his default reaction when the crocodile was brought up. "Hmm," he said as a reply, not particularly want to try and explain that situation. It was neither a victory nor a loss so he couldn't say he won - at the very least, he had survived and found something else, something better than the half-life he had been living before.

He drew her hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss to her palm. Indeed, something much better, something that he didn't know if he was worthy for, but selfish enough to want anyway.

His movement didn't go unnoticed. Skip made a noise, twisting his large hand to communicate with the crew, drawing a bawdy laugh from the group.

"What?" Emma asked, narrowing her eyes at the larger man. Pirates, after all, weren't known for their politeness and while Skip could most definitely launch her clear across the harbor, she wasn't going to let him insult one of them to her face.

"Skip 'ere remembers another tale, that your butt is so divine that even if a woman could resist you, they couldn't resist that," Orc said, sniggering.

Killian made a noise, shifting in his seat, biting his lip hard to keep from laughing. "Well," he said slowly, his eyes betraying him once more as they flickered to Emma and she knew what was coming before he finished speaking. "I noticed you lingered behind me quite a bit on the beanstalk, darling."

She punched his shoulder as everyone dissolved into laughter. This time, she was the one betrayed, her lips twitching, unnoticed by everyone except him. He resolved to ask her if it was true later.

(It is).

...

...

Many hours later, they walked up the steps to their house, the cool air pushing away the lingering effects of the alcohol. Emma snorted as he sung at a sailor's tune in her ear, arms wrapped around her waist, making it increasingly difficult to find the right key to open the door to their house, which was much closer than trying to walk back to her parents or his ship. He paused between words, pressing light kisses to her neck, and she shivered when the song fell to a whisper, his lips brushing her skin with every word.

"Stop, I'm trying to concentrate," she mumbled, deciding right then that she wouldn't touch coconut rum again in her life as her hand shook while putting the key in. Even though she thought the shaking was more the results of his presence much too close to her than the coconut rum she had stolen from him two hours ago.

He laughed, steadying her hand and throwing the door open easily.

Before she could make a move into the room, he grabbed her, lifting her up into his arms bridal style. She shrieked, grabbing his shoulders and ducking into his chest as he stepped over the threshold. "Why'd you do that?"

"If there's a chance to sweep you off your feet, dear Swan, then I shall always take it," he laughed, pressing a kiss to the top of her hair as he set her back down on her feet. He didn't let her move far, his arm wrapping around her waist and his chin dropping onto her hair, neither moving from the foyer as the evening's activities faded, leading behind a startling sobriety. Nobody had been in this house in ages, certainly not them, and it brought back memories, none of them particularly good.

Well, except one.

One from a time sitting in the forest, kissing as a flame flickered to life, as they promised a future that kept ending before their eyes. They hadn't talked about it since then, despite the fact that she often fell asleep curled up in his arms.

"Still want a future with me?" He asked quietly. She shuffled against him, spinning around in his embrace to face him, head tilted up, a fire in her eyes that he recognized quite well.

He could see the retort building on her lips, but either she saw something on his face or sensed the way this house brought up questions and memories that neither wanted to face because she sighed. Her lips curved up in a smile, small but genuine, hand rising up his chest to cup his face, drawing his face closer to hers, their noses brushing together.

A hairbreadth away, she stopped, using words that they both knew needed to be said aloud rather than inferred. "Yes." When she kissed him, everything else washed away except for the feel of her lips as they parted beneath his, her hand snaking up to curl into his hair, pouring everything into the kiss that they knew but hadn't confirmed since that day in the forest.

He drew her closer, feeling heat creep up his spine, his tongue swiping across her lip, drawing hers out, a groan building in his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck and his arms crossed around her back, lifting her into his arms without breaking the kiss, stumbling their way upstairs, pointedly leaving their phones behind.

Storybrooke could handle itself for a few hours.

Hopefully.


	9. Wish, Wish

**prompt 9** : Evil Queen's wish in the 6a winter finale was slightly different...

* * *

One of the instructors were named Jones. It wasn't too important at first glance, she only had the class as a maybe if one of the others didn't pan out and she didn't think too much of it till she went to print.

 _K. Jones._

Somehow that first initial was important. Very important. Her brain didn't know why, but the rest of her knew something. Her heart beat faster in her chest.

 _K. Jones._

She checked the faculty page. She needed to know what their first name was.

 _K. Jones_

She was standing on the edge of a cliff reaching for something, something. Something that didn't have a name or a reason, just something that she needed to find.

 _This is important_ , a part of her whispered. _Find him._

Her thoughts were silly yet she scrolled faster, holding her breath, ignoring the clatter of Henry's feet as he came in the door and missing the buzz of the washing machine as it finished. She was so close to figuring it out. She hadn't realized there was an it till then and now it was as though the empty feeling where something was supposed to be was too powerful to ignore.

There was a gaping hole and every passing second made her feel as though a far reaching memory was trying to break the surface.

So close, so close.

 _K. Jones._

 _K. Jones._

Carson Joan. Wendy Johavior. Marvin John. Kenneth Jones.

 _Kenneth Jones._

"Fucking Kenneth," she whispered, deflating. It wasn't the name she was looking for, it wasn't Killian.

Killian. _Killian._

Something warm spread from the tips of her toes to the top of her head like a blanket. She remembered a kind smile and a tiny woman she loved like family who was her mother. She remembered a vague stranger making mistakes who was her father. She remembered jail, her pregnancy, the heartbreak as she gave him away, the heartbreak as she saw him again, and the utter despair when her son had died, the relief when he came back.

She remember the uneven beat of her heart as lips pressed against hers and the gleam of metal beneath her palm, razor sharp yet something she knew would never hurt her.

Her eyes widened.

"What was that?" Henry piqued in, slumping onto the couch beside her, peeking at the screen. Tactfully, he didn't notice her jump. "Decided to go to school again, mom?" Or maybe was distracted by something else.

"I was considering it, but now I think we might travel for a little while." Her memory was fuzzy and yet clearer than it had ever been

"Where to?" he asked, not bothered by the prospect of moving yet again. To him, this would just be another place, just like their move from Florida to Boston, then to New York. He wouldn't know that he had been raised in Maine, that he had lived there his entire life without her and that the life they had, them against the world, wasn't so real and it had been painful for them both.

The life they had here, the fake one, should have been enough.

And yet, happy as it was, they had family that wanted them back and a town they had to save. People who loved him, people who loved her. And selfishly she wanted it back. Him, especially.

Killian Jones. "Storybrooke."


	10. Type

For **goddesswan** on tumblr.

* * *

 **prompt 10:** blind date

* * *

Emma scowled. The better part of an hour had passed and yet she couldn't see any sign of Mary Margaret nor did she receive a response to the numerous texts that Emma had sent in the past hour. The restaurant looked like the type of place someone might go to celebrate, but from an outside appearance, it didn't look much different than any other restaurant in downtown Storybrooke.

Storybrooke wasn't even that large, there was absolutely no reason that Mary Margaret wasn't waiting for her already, especially since Emma had taken fifteen minutes longer than normal to show up. Deputy Booth wasn't the fastest man in the world, she half thought his body was made of wood from the slowness of his movements when it came to switching shifts.

Funnily enough, it only showed up when he was arriving at work and yet his hitherto unknown relationship to fast moving superheroes seemed more prominent when his shifted ended for the evening.

Familial relationships to fictional characters aside, Emma wanted nothing more than to head home and snuggle in her bed, but a promise was a promise, no matter how drunk Emma might have been when she made it.

(The answer was very, but it was Mary Margaret's bachelorette party and Emma hadn't expected her to remember something that occurred over five months ago).

She tapped her fingers on the wheel of her bug and, right as she considered leaving, her phone buzzed at her side.

06:27pm. New message. Mary Margaret Nolan. _Sorry Emma I didn't hear my phone. Come inside!_

… There was no way that Mary Margaret had been inside the entire time. No way at all.

And yet Emma climbed out of her car anyway, grumbling while she made her way to the door of the restaurant. Her eyes narrowed. It wasn't very fancy looking, the type of place that welcome riff-raff like Emma as a teen and exhausted, overworked Emma of the present without any qualms, and yet the heavenly smell of cheeseburgers nearly made her drool.

"Nolan," Emma ventured when someone finally questioned her.

The hostess' eyes flashed with knowledge – Emma suddenly didn't trust that look and regretted more than ever that she hadn't just called Mary Margaret to meet her outside – and then gestured for her to follow. Another woman lead her to the back of the room, to a private secluded section. Emma's brain screamed set up with every step and her words were only confirmed when the hostess gestured her into a booth containing a dark-haired person.

A dark-haired _man_ and definitely not the dark-haired woman that Emma had been expecting.

"Don't tell me," said Emma, pinching her nose as the woman left them alone with a sly wink. To whom, Emma didn't know. "You're Killian, right?"

"Guilty." He grinned, absently spinning an empty glass on the table with one hand. "So, I take it my mate isn't here to complain about the woos of marriage already?"

"And I take it my _mate_ isn't here to gush about the beauty of her new home," Emma said as a reply.

"Afraid I've owned my home for a few years, but I can certainly exclaim over the Jolly Roger's magnificence to any ear that wishes to listen."

"Flatterer," she said dryly. "Your house is named after Captain Hook's ship?"

"My ship is named after Captain Hook's ship."

"…You live on a ship?" In her weaker moments, Emma considered buying a boat and living off one too, but that seemed foolish when her car worked in a pinch. Now she could afford the crummy apartment she called her home.

"Indeed! She's a marvel."

"We're still talking about your ship, right?" Emma found herself sitting, but only because a server needed to get by and not for any other reason, thank you very much.

"Doubt me? I can show you."

Despite herself, she laughed.

He blinked and then smiled. "I will claim that was a planned question from the start, but in a hypothetical situation, I would say I only meant to show you pictures."

"I'll call bullshit either way so let's see it," she said, curious and she leaned across the booth to examine the phone as he held it up to her. In retrospect, she could have just taken the phone from him to see it, but Emma hadn't been thinking of that in the slightest.

No, she wasn't thinking of whether his eyes were really that blue or if it was the trick of the light. No, she wasn't thinking about the way his hair fell in his eyes. No, Emma was not thinking about Killian Jones like that in the slightest, no matter what Mary Margaret spouted about him being just her type.

Emma didn't have a type.

Except she did.

And he hit every tick on the list and then some.

His lips twitched as though he knew and she certainly couldn't know that he was thinking the same of her curly, pony-tail strewn hair, the flecks of amber in her green eyes, or the strange little half-smile that he definitely wanted to see as a full-blown smile.

No, she definitely didn't know that, as they debated on the merits of ships versus cars for sleeping arrangements (read as: ships are roomy, but cars are portable), that he thought David's wife was very right about Emma Swan.

She was definitely his type.

(She texted Mary Margaret an hour later with a threat about fixing her up with anyone ever again).

(The next day, she sent her a thanks and a winky face and left it at that).


End file.
